Continuing his defense of draconian state legislation to allow individuals and businesses to refuse services to gay people on religious grounds, Fox News contributor Erick Erickson suggested that businesses serving gay couples were "aiding and abetting sin."

Erickson continued his criticism of his Fox News colleague Kirsten Powers' recent USA Today column, in which Powers criticized "homosexual Jim Crow laws" currently being debated in several state legislatures. Those laws would allow businesses to refuse service to gay customers for religious reasons.

In her column, Powers, an evangelical Christian herself, argued that Christians shouldn't refuse services to people simply because they disagreed with them, noting that many "Christians serve unrepentant murders through prison ministry." Erickson responded by asserting that, unlike prison ministers, businesses that serve gay couples would be "aiding and abetting" sin:

This isn't the first time Erickson has defended anti-gay business discrimination. After a Colorado court ruled in December that a baker had violated the state's anti-discrimination law by refusing to serve a gay couple, Erickson blasted "evil" gay rights activists for allegedly using non-discrimination protections to wage war on Christians. Commenting in August on the case of a New Mexico photographer who refused to photograph a same-sex commitment ceremony, Erickson solicited donations for the photographer's attorneys at the Alliance Defending Freedom - an extremist group working internationally to criminalize homosexuality.